


Can't Fight The Moonlight

by sunsetmog



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Accidental Pregnancy, Boys being absolutely terrible at talking about their feelings, M/M, Mpreg, Relationship Negotiation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-25
Updated: 2020-02-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:40:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22899649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsetmog/pseuds/sunsetmog
Summary: "How is it possible that neither of you thought to pay attention to the moon cycle?""It was cloudy," Harry said. "And we were drunk. We were very, very drunk.""This just gets better," Hermione said. "How could you have been so stupid?""In my defence," Harry said, "I had no idea that I should have been paying attention to the moon cycle. I'm not going to lie, I didn't even know men could get pregnant. It's been like, one long life lesson all round."Or: the one where Harry accidentally gets Draco pregnant, both of them fail to talk about their feelings, and in the end, there's a baby.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 109
Kudos: 1828
Collections: My HP Favorites, Warm + Fluffy





	Can't Fight The Moonlight

**Author's Note:**

> I... well. This happened. Title from the LeeAnn Rimes song of the same name.

It began, like a lot of things in Harry's life, with Hermione staring at him in mute disbelief. 

The mute part lasted approximately 2.5 seconds, and Harry wasn't going to lie, he wished it was longer. 

"Haven't you ever read, I don't know, anything?" she spluttered, whilst Ron sat in the armchair by the fire and shook his head a lot. He was grinning, although this was more to do with Hermione's exasperation being directed towards someone who wasn't him than the situation in general, which didn't offer too much in the good news stakes. 

"In my defence," Harry started, then he stopped. "No? I've read nothing that says shagging a pureblood by the light of a full moon was almost certainly going to result in someone getting pregnant."

"I think there's a space for that in the Hogwarts curriculum, you know," Ron said. "You could get on that, Hermione. We've only got about seventeen projects on the go, there's bound to be room for another one if we try."

Hermione was getting a little red around the cheekbones, which did not bode well for any of them. "I had written a letter already," she said, "because PSHE is just as valid on a wizarding curriculum as a Muggle one. This just goes to show I'm right, and that I need to write another letter."

"I'm 28," Harry said, because he was, and because any change to the Hogwarts curriculum now was hardly going to impact his life in any helpful way. 

Hermione just looked at him like he was stupid. In this case, he actually was. 

"Er, who'd you knock up, anyway?" Ron asked.

"Um," Harry said. "Didn't I say?"

"No," Hermione said. "You skipped that part."

"Right," Harry said. He picked at the threadbare patch on his jeans. "Draco Malfoy?"

"For fuck's sake, Harry," Hermione said, and Ron stopped grinning. 

"Yeah," Harry said, and tried to smile. 

~*~

It actually began in February, on a Thursday, on a night where Harry got so drunk he could barely see straight, and it just so happened that Draco was matching him drink for drink. They weren't friends; they weren't anything, they were just both in same place at the same time and in the mood to snipe at each other all evening because there wasn't anything better to do. Then the pub had closed. They'd stood outside in the street in the rain, and Harry had said, _there's some firewhisky back at mine_ , and somehow they hadn't splinched themselves apparating back to Grimmauld Place. 

The fucking on the sofa with the curtains open had sort of happened by accident, and it had been all right, if unexpected. It had been followed by the rain stopping and the clouds clearing, and Draco's very audible " **Fuck** ," as he stared out of the window at the full moon. 

At the time, Harry had rather assumed it was a general statement on their poor fucking life choices, but with hindsight he was leaning towards it being slightly more about the specificity of their fucking awful timing. 

~*~

"Let me get this straight," Hermione said, quite calmly, "you have impregnated Draco Malfoy?"

"Fucking hell," Ron said, shaking his head. "You've fucked Malfoy."

"Yeah," Harry said, to both of them. Brevity was a worthwhile approach given the circumstances. 

"Ferret face," Ron went on. "You've fucked Ferret face."

"How is it possible that neither of you thought to pay attention to the moon cycle?"

"It was cloudy," Harry said. "And we were drunk. We were very, very drunk."

"This just gets better," Hermione said. "How could you have been so stupid?"

"In my defence," Harry said, "I had no idea that I should have been paying attention to the moon cycle. I'm not going to lie, I didn't even know men could get pregnant. It's been like, one long life lesson all round."

Ron made a face. "Hold up. How do you think Charlie had Maja? Did you miss the part where he was pregnant?"

"I very clearly missed that part," Harry said. "Very clearly do not remember any of you ever saying, 'hey, Charlie's knocked up, he hasn't just got some random girl pregnant, the person having the baby is actually Charlie'. I'd have remembered that."

"Charlie doesn't like girls," Ron said. 

"Yes," Harry said. "I always thought it was a bit weird, him knocking somebody up, but you know, who am I to comment on other people's life choices?"

"Who indeed," Hermione said, relatively faintly. "How are you this oblivious?"

"One of life's great wonders," Harry said. "Either of you got any actually helpful advice?"

Ron let out a long, loud breath. "No," he said finally. "Other than I think maybe I'll write a letter to Hogwarts too."

"Minerva will like that," Hermione said, patting his knee. "Harry, what are you going to do?"

"Fuck knows," Harry said. "Have a baby, it looks like."

"Right," Ron said. "Christ, I'm going to be an uncle. To Malfoy's baby."

"Yes," Harry said, and took up biting his fingernails as a hobby. 

~*~

"So," Draco had said, turning up on Harry's doorstep at 8.15am on a Saturday morning, "I believe we may have to deal with the lasting impact of our moonlit madness."

"Are you drunk?" Harry asked, rubbing his eyes. He was still half asleep. He'd been asleep up until a fairly solid 63 seconds ago, and was currently standing on his doorstep in yesterday's pants and wrapped in a blanket instead of a dressing gown. 

Draco narrowed his eyes. "Our full moon error," he said. "Perhaps we should have this conversation when you're less… deshabille."

"What are you on about?" Harry asked, trying to stifle a yawn. He failed, and yawned wide. "Are you sure you're not drunk?"

"Sex by the light of the moon?" Draco said. "Our poorly timed fuckage."

"Is that a word?"

Draco frowned. "Is it possible," he said carefully, "that you don't have a clue what I'm talking about?"

"You're talking nonsense," Harry said, equally carefully. "Maybe you should come back when you're sober."

Draco just looked at him. "I'm very pregnant," he said. 

"Of course you are," Harry said, and closed the door, yelling through it, "Come back when you're sober, Malfoy."

"I've made some life-changing errors in my time," Draco said, without removing himself from Harry's doorstep, "but it's possible that this might be the worst yet. Go to the fucking library, Potter, and see what a fucking mess we've made of our lives, and then come and find me so I can tell you how stupid you are and we can talk about what the hell we're going to do next."

Harry, for his sins, got dressed and went to the library. 

~*~

"You didn't know that pregnancy was a risk?" Draco asked, once Harry had been to the library, marinaded in his own fear and horror for a day or so, and then shown up on Draco's doorstep looking faintly green. "Are you an idiot?"

"Yes," Harry said. "But let's not throw stones, you knew it was a risk and you didn't stop it either."

Draco also looked a little green, but Harry rather suspected that was an overall aesthetic choice rather than abject nausea, although under the circumstances it could very likely be both. "It was raining," he said. "And overcast. And I was very, very drunk."

Harry leaned against the doorframe. He'd assumed that Draco would still be living at the manor with his parents, but one extremely awkward doorstep conversation later and Harry was instead at Draco's flat in Basingstoke. He was going to leave off warning Draco about the awkward follow up conversation where Draco's parents inquired exactly what Harry was doing looking for him for later, or perhaps never. Definitely never. 

Draco's skin was flushed. "I don't do this very often, all right? I don't spend that much time needing to know where we're at in the moon cycle."

"Well," Harry said, "I'm going to spend a lot more time thinking about it going forward."

"Indeed," Draco said. There was a pause. "There's going to be a baby, Potter."

"Are you certain?"

"Yes," Draco said, without going into any more detail. Ironically, detail would have been helpful, given that Harry was still at the very start of his learning curve about male pregnancy. "You're going to be a father."

"You are too," Harry said. 

Draco looked at him then. Looked at him for the longest time. "You should go," he said finally. "Give you some time to get your head around it."

"What about your head?"

"I've had my time to think," Draco said. "Come back in a couple of weeks and we'll talk."

Harry, for want of something better to do, nodded, and left. 

~*~

"So, there we are," Harry said, neatly avoiding meeting Hermione's eyes. 

"There we are, what," Hermione said. "Are you honestly telling me that that was the last conversation you had about your impending fatherhood? Three weeks ago?"

"I'm building up to going back," Harry said. 

"Right," Hermione said, and then she threw a cushion at his head. "Get up."

"What?"

"Get up, you've knocked that boy up and now you're going to deal with it."

"That boy is Ferret Face Malfoy," Ron said. "How on earth did you get to the point where you were fucking Malfoy?"

"We were drunk," Harry said miserably. 

"I've never fallen on his dick when I was drunk," Ron said. 

"I should hope not," Hermione said sharply. 

"Not that you fell on his dick," Ron went on. "More like the other way around, given the, you know, baby, and everything."

"The pub was closed and I had firewhisky here," Harry said. "So we came back to have some."

"So to say thanks, you had sex by the light of the moon. Wow."

"I was too drunk to think about closing the curtains." Harry was being manhandled by Hermione towards his cloak cupboard. 

"I've never been drunk enough that sex with Draco Malfoy was on the table," Ron said, ambling after them. "You didn't do it on the table, right?"

"Just the sofa," Harry said. "Twice."

"Mate," Ron said, shaking his head. "Mate."

"I'm so disappointed in you," Hermione said, pulling open the cupboard door and chucking a cloak at him. It was his old one, and not quite broad enough across the shoulders, but maybe it wasn't the right time to comment on Hermione's sartorial choices. Harry put the cloak on. "You can't pretend this isn't happening, and you can't leave Draco Malfoy to go through this alone. This is your baby and your responsibility."

"Your baby with Draco Malfoy," Ron added. Harry punched him in the arm for good measure. "That you got because you had drunk sex on your sofa. Mate."

"Ronald," Hermione snapped. "I swear, if you ever knock me up like that, you're sleeping in the shed."

"We don't have a shed."  
"We will get one," Hermione said, bundling Harry towards the door. "We will get one, just so you can sleep in it. We might get one now, just so you can test it out. Go and speak to Draco, Harry, and don't come back until you've sorted this."

And then Harry was on his own doorstep, in an old, too-small cloak, and he thought that maybe it wasn't the time to point out that he could just as easily apparate from inside the house. 

"Don't come back until you've sorted this out," Hermione called, through Harry's own front door. 

Harry sighed miserably, and apparated to Basingstoke. 

~*~

"Hello," Harry said. 

"Hello," Draco said. "Your cloak doesn't fit."

"No," Harry said. "What are you wearing?"

Draco appeared to be in some kind of dark green silk pyjama set. 

"Loungewear," Draco said. "I didn't actually expect anyone to apparate directly into my living room. Usually guests come via the front door."

"Maybe your wards need adjusting," Harry said, looking at a point somewhere over Draco's left shoulder, just for kicks. 

"Maybe," Draco said. 

"You don't look pregnant," Harry said. 

Draco looked at him. "The baby is very tiny."

"It'll get bigger, won't it?"

"That's the aim," Draco said. "I believe that's what happens."

"Right," Harry said. There was a spot on the wallpaper behind Draco's head that looked very interesting. "I don't know much about babies."

"You shock me."

"Do you?"

"No," Draco said. "I've never been around one."

"Me neither," Harry said. "Unless you count playing with Teddy sometimes."

"Indeed," Draco said. 

Harry perched on the arm of Draco's sofa. Draco looked pained, so Harry sort of slid sideways until he was sitting on the sofa instead. "Have you any idea what we're going to do?"

Draco very carefully sat down in a neat armchair. "I know what I'm going to do," he said. He looked at Harry. "I'm going to have this baby. And then I am not going to bring this baby up."

Harry's fingers twitched. "What?"

"The Malfoy family is no place for a child," he said. "I cannot promise this child any future beyond the childhood I had. And I won't subject another child to that."

"Malfoy," Harry said. 

"It's fine," Draco said. "I've made my decision, and now it's up to you to make yours. Will you bring this child up? If not, I'll speak to my solicitor about the adoption process."

Draco was precise and neat and he wasn't making eye contact with Harry at all. That time they'd had sex, Draco's hair had fallen in his eyes, and for a moment, Harry had been blindsided by how beautiful he'd looked. Alcohol was a dangerous thing. 

"I don't know," Harry said. "I don't know what to do."

"Think about it," Draco said. "There's time."

Harry looked down at his hands. "Are you all right? Do you need anything?"

"I'm perfectly capable of providing for myself."

"I never said you weren't."

"I'm fine," Draco said. "It's just a few months."

"Yes," Harry said. There was a baby here with them in the room, a tiny baby that might change everything. Harry could barely look after himself. How was he supposed to manage a baby? A tiny baby all of his own. He hesitated. "Don't— don't start the adoption process yet."

"I won't," Draco said. "I'll wait."

"Let me know if you need anything."

Draco looked very alone, all of a sudden. "All right," he said, and Harry didn't know what to say to that, so he nodded, and left. 

~*~

"So," Ron said, when they'd found a spare ten minutes to go to the bakery and get a pasty each and call it lunch, "how's things?"

Harry took a bite of his cheese and onion pasty. "Which things?"

Ron rolled his eyes. "Your moonlight activities."

"I don't have moonlight activities."

"You did once. Well, twice."

"I was very drunk. We were both very drunk."

"You said," Ron said, and by mutual, silent consent, they walked down to the river and dried off a bench so they could sit and watch the rubbish float by and pretend it was nature. "But, like, you know. The rest of it."

"The baby," Harry said. 

"Yes," Ron said. "That."

"It's very tiny," Harry said. "Right now, it's really tiny."

"Yes," Ron said again. "They start out that way."

Harry was getting bits of flaky pastry all over his coat and his lap and his fingers. So was Ron, but pumpkin pasties tended to hold together a bit better than the cheese and onion ones, so his mess was less pronounced. "Do you think I could be a dad?"

"Bit too late to be thinking about that now, isn't it? It's coming."

"We could have it adopted."

Ron glanced at him. "Malfoy's never going to let that happen. It's well important to them, innit? Babies and stuff. The Malfoy name."

Harry kept thinking about Draco, quiet and still in his high-backed chair, saying he wouldn't subject a child to the childhood he'd had. "Yeah," he said, after a while. 

"Not that babies aren't important to us," Ron went on, spraying a bit of pumpkin pasty in Harry's general direction. "Love a Weasley baby, we do."

"I'm not a Weasley."

Ron elbowed him. "Try telling Mum that. Just maybe, like, when you tell her, frame you fucking Malfoy when you were both wasted as something a bit more, I don't know, delicate? And in return, I won't tell anyone you didn't notice Charlie was pregnant."

"In my defence," Harry said, "that was around the time me and Ginny broke up, and it wasn't like I was around all that much, and no one had mentioned that it was even a possibility, so it's not my fault I didn't notice."

"He got quite big towards the end, you know, with the baby and everything."

Harry glanced at Ron, and at Ron's pasty. "Might have been pies," he said shortly. "And anyway, I don't think I saw him until Maja was born, and it's no fucking business of mine how big anyone is."

"Whatever," Ron said. "I've written that letter in support of Hermione's curriculum change, you know. McGonagall's going to be well surprised."

"I'm not sure she knew you could write."

"Touch and go," Ron said. "Hermione helped me with the big words."

Harry elbowed him, and Ron elbowed him back, and by the time they'd headed back inside to work, Harry had managed to avoid making any decisions at all. 

~*~

"How's Draco?" Hermione asked, over dinner. 

Harry did not drop his gaze. "Last time I saw him, he was fine."

"Great," Hermione said, and allowed him another helping of lasagne, which he ate even though it should have stuck in his throat. He hadn't seen Draco since that time he was in green silk pyjamas, and that had been over a month ago. "Might not have to buy you a shed for your birthday after all."

"Making people sleep in the shed is weird, Hermione," Ron said. 

"Not if they deserve it," she said, and smiled at Harry. 

Harry smiled back. His lips felt like they were stuck to his teeth. 

"Cherry cake for pudding," Ron said. "Made it myself."

"You are a baking genius," Hermione told him, patting him on the arm. 

"I know," Ron said, and grinned. 

~*~

He found himself in Mothercare on a Saturday morning, looking at tiny t-shirts and tiny skirts and tiny socks and tiny toys and small, baby-sized furniture. 

"Are you looking for anything in particular?" 

The girl was young, and bored, but at least she was trying. Harry could hardly say, 'just trying to decide if I should bring up my child or not' so he shook his head. "Just looking."

"Let me know if there's anything I can do to help."

"I will," he said, and he didn't have any of this stuff. He had no furniture and no clothes and no idea how to look after a baby. What do they eat? When do they stop using nappies? How do teeth grow? Did he just take them to school when they're five and leave them there?"

He stood for a while in front of something called 'baby's first _I love you daddy_ bodysuit' and felt one thing, and then another thing. He didn't know where to put either of those feelings so he shoved them into a dark recess somewhere at the back of his brain. 

He bought a little blue sleepsuit covered in rainbows and clouds and birds, a little fluffy coat with bear ears, a set of little grey socks with elephants and lions on, and a little soft toy whale, suitable from birth. And then he went home, stood in his hallway for about three minutes, then apparated straight to Basingstoke, and Draco's front step. 

"I'll do it," he said, Mothercare bag still in hand, when Draco answered the door. "I'll bring our baby up."

Draco's expression went a couple of places relatively quickly, and then shuttered back down to blank. "Long time, no see, Potter," he said. "I was beginning to think I should send out a search party."

"Sorry," Harry said. "I had a lot to think about."

Draco was in a jumper and trousers, a little loose around his stomach. Harry couldn't tell if that was baby or just the fit. 

"Is everything all right?" he asked. 

"Yes," Draco said. "I'm sorry. I'm busy right now. We should arrange to meet up and make arrangements."

"Have you changed your mind?"

"No," Draco said. He looked paler than normal. "I'm busy, Potter."

"I'm sorry," Harry said again. "For taking so long."

"Not a decision to under-think," Draco said, but he was already closing the door, and Harry couldn't be sure if he'd seen Draco's face crumple, or if it had just been a trick of the light. 

~*~

"I need a book," Harry said, without bothering with hello. 

Ron glanced down at his jumper and then back up again. "Just checking," he said. "Thought I might have accidentally turned into Hermione."

"She won't get me just one book," Harry said. "And she'll tell me I'm an idiot for not getting a book before today."

"Well, she'll be right," Ron said, and opened the door so that Harry could come in. "Hermione," he called, "Harry's here and he needs a book recommendation." 

Hermione was in the kitchen. She came out carrying a cup of tea. "Kettle's just boiled," she said. "If either of you want tea."

"You could have made me one," Ron said. 

"You could also have cleaned up after breakfast like you said you would," she said. 

"Fair," Ron said, and went into the kitchen to clean up and - hopefully - make him and Harry tea. "Harry thinks you'll call him an idiot for some reason."

"Probably true," Hermione said, and graciously allowed Harry a sip of her tea. "What do you need?"

"A book about babies," he said. "And how to look after them, probably. When you can feed them cheese, that sort of thing."

"Cheese," Hermione said carefully. 

"Not specifically cheese," Harry said. "Cheese and, you know, other things."

"Is it possible that you know precisely fuck all about children?"

"It's possible," Harry said. "In my defence, I don't know many. Or any, really."

"Right," Hermione said. "I did buy one that I was going to give you, actually. It's in the bag on the table."

"How'd you know I wouldn't buy one myself?"

"A completely random but seemingly quite lucky guess," Hermione said, sitting down on the sofa. The house she and Ron shared was full of Weasley blankets and bookshelves and rather too much orange. "There you go."

Inside the Flourish and Blotts bag was a copy of _The Magic of Parenthood: What to Expect When You're Expecting_. 

"There's probably not a chapter specifically about cheese, which will hopefully give you your answer about whether it's okay to feed your baby it—"

"It's not okay," Ron called helpfully from the kitchen. 

"Got it," Harry called back. He was flicking through. The first few pages showed the baby's growth in the parent's tummy at each month. He counted back to the night of the full moon, and hesitated over the _your baby at four months_ section. "It's about the size of an orange," he said, and his fingers twitched as he read, _they might also have found their thumb and worked out how to suck it by now, too_.

Oh fuck, he was having a baby. 

~*~

Harry found himself back in Basingstoke the following evening, but this time he had a menu for a local takeaway in his hand and his new book in his bag. 

"Hello," Draco said, once he'd opened his front door. 

Harry waved the Thai menu in Draco's direction. "Thought I could buy you dinner and we could talk."

Draco's expression was clearly wavering between bemused and vaguely enthusiastic. 

"Come on," Harry said. "Who doesn't love free food?"

"You're such a pleb," Draco said, but he stood back and let Harry into his hallway. It was a neutral beige hallway, with laminate flooring and silver hooks on the wall for his coats and cloaks. If Harry had had to pick any place on earth for Draco to live, it wouldn't be here. He hadn't really noticed the decoration either of the other times he'd been here, but then he'd had other things to think about. 

"Nice place you've got here," Harry said. 

Draco rolled his eyes. "I'm trying a new aesthetic."

"I've always thought of you as beige."

"Glad I've finally satisfied you." There was a moment's pause as they both stared at each other, and Harry contemplated the fact that there were three of them in the hallway and not just two. "You can hang your cloak up there. Would you like tea?"

Harry would like a beer and for the world to turn itself back the right way up, but apparently that wasn't going to happen any time soon. He said yes to the tea and started unwinding his scarf and unbuttoning his cloak. 

"I learnt when you can give babies cheese," Harry called after Draco's retreating back. 

Draco turned around. "What?"

"Well," Harry said. "I learned that you can't give them cheese straight away."

There was a moment where nothing happened. "Were you intending to?"

"No," Harry said. "It was just on a list, you know, of things that I didn't know. When you could give them cheese. But I'm learning."

Draco nodded, and didn't quite meet Harry's eyes. "Tea," he said. "Go through to the living room. I'll bring the tea through."

Draco's living room turned out to be just as oddly anti-Draco as the rest of the flat, laminate flooring and black and chrome sofas and a coffee table. There was a single bookcase and then, even weirder, a Muggle television set. 

"Is this place Muggle?" Harry asked loudly, without bothering to go and find Draco. 

"Yes," Draco called back. "Mostly."

"Huh." Harry sat down on the sofa and set about unlacing his trainers. He didn't usually bother but Draco seemed the kind of person to have inside and outside shoes. "Any particular reason why?"

"I realise we're doing this backwards, but that still doesn't mean you're privy to the ins and out of my personal life."

"Sorry," Harry said, as Draco put the mugs down on the coffee table and sat down in the armchair. Harry glanced at his stomach. Their baby was still only small, but maybe Draco might be showing. 

"My eyes are up here, Potter," Draco said. 

"It's the size of an orange," Harry said. "Our baby."

Draco flushed. "Your baby."

"I read that it's the size of an orange. And that it has fingers and thumbs and it might be sucking its thumb right now."

Draco's face did an odd, shuttered kind of a thing as it settled down towards blankness. 

"Are you sure? About not wanting to bring it up?"

"Yes," Draco said. "I've made my decision. This baby isn't having my childhood over again and it's the only one I can offer. So the baby will have to go somewhere else. To someone else."

Harry didn't want to go into the intricacies of his personal childhood, so he didn't. "Don't make this decision lightly," he said finally, echoing Draco's advice from a previous conversation. 

Draco just looked at him. His face didn't something a bit weird that Harry didn't properly understand. "I won't," he said finally. "I haven't."

Harry nodded. "Are you hungry? We should order."

"So long as the conversation whilst we eat is anything other than babies."

"Done," Harry said, and tried to hide the relief from his face. 

~*~

It was another few weeks before Harry picked the room at the back of the house for the nursery, and according to his book, the baby was bigger than a pepper. The nursery overlooked the garden, not that the garden was much other than an overgrown space where occasionally he went out and hacked the most pervasively overgrown things down, but at least it was nature, and Harry was of the opinion that babies should see nature. He'd mostly seen his aunt and uncle's over-manicured lawn and the front garden with its competitive borders and neatly strimmed edges. He wasn't entirely sure that that counted, but he had also been forbidden from playing anywhere where the neighbours might see, so that had rather limited his interaction anyway. 

Harry's baby, though, Harry's baby was going to see nature from its window, and be able to play in the garden and wherever it wanted, and it was going to be perfect. 

He painted the walls green, like trees and grass and open space and freedom, and — not having any clue where magical babies got their furniture from and not having anyone to ask when the baby was still such a secret — he went back to Mothercare and splashed right the fuck out. Getting it out of the shop and home again was a bit more of a puzzle, but if the cctv picked him up wheeling a trolley into an alley filled with bins, then they sure as anything didn't pick him up coming back out again. Then he played a magical game of magical flat pack creation, and the world gained a little more anger and Harry gained a lot of perspective on how Muggles felt when they came back from Ikea, and afterwards, his nursery had furniture and about sixteen different bags of baby clothes, and his future had a baby in it, and everything was really terribly odd and backwards and upside down. 

In his defence, he really had been very, very drunk, it had been raining, and his schooldays had mostly been concerned with Voldemort and his followers trying to kill him whenever he turned a corner. He hadn't had much chance to consider how gay he was until everything had all calmed down, and by that point he'd been 22 and in general a bit bewildered by not being constantly at war or being shoved onto a podium somewhere. It wasn't entirely his fault that by that point he'd missed the leaflet filled with all the things he was supposed to know by then, like, apparently, not shagging on a full moon and being aware of the fucking moon cycle in the first place. 

To be honest, Harry was still a bit unsure about the magical biology of male pregnancy in the first place, but he rather thought he'd leave the magical placement of moon-drenched wombs to academics, healers, and - perhaps unfairly - to Draco Malfoy to figure out.

Harry was very, very aware of how responsible he was for the baby Draco was carrying, and at the same time, a little bit pissed off that no one had every bothered fucking telling him the ins and outs of what it meant to fuck a man in the wizarding world. 

You didn't get this picking someone up in Yates' Wine Lodge on a Friday night. 

Fuck, he was going to have to get a babysitter if he ever wanted to sleep with anyone ever, ever again, although given on the experience he'd had between the ages of 22 and 28, that would come to six nights and about eight hours of human contact, so maybe a babysitter wasn't entirely out of the question. 

It was not entirely Harry's fault that so far adulthood was not turning out quite how he'd imagined it. 

~*~

"There's an appointment," Draco said, "on Thursday."

"I'm working," Harry said, putting down his tea cup. Draco has tea cups. Harry has mugs. Why he was round at Draco's was a question he doesn't want to think about too much, but he'd finished the nursery and he sort of wanted to tell _somebody_ he'd done it, but it felt too private to share with Ron and Hermione, and — now that he's here — not quite the right time to share with Draco.

Draco rolled his eyes. "I wasn't inviting you," he said. "There is no way the two of us can arrive together at a healer's and not have someone eventually find out. That won't be happening."

"Loads of people are going in and out of St Mungo's."

Draco just looked at him. "I have a private healer, and I wasn't inviting you. I just…" he looked a bit tired, and maybe flushed. "I wondered if you'd like to hear the outcome. I could keep you up to date. If you wanted to keep a record."

Harry wasn't entirely sure what he was supposed to be keeping a record _of_ , but at the same time, he was fairly convinced that he should be. "That would be nice," he said finally, and if Draco refused to meet his eyes for the rest of the evening then that was completely normal and only to be expected. 

~*~

"Minerva's promised to put PSHE on the curriculum for next academic year," Hermione said instead of _hello_ , depositing a bottle of wine into Harry's waiting arms and shrugging off her cloak. Ron followed her inside with a cake box. 

"Coffee and walnut cake," he said, passing it to Harry. "Made it myself."

"Hello," Harry said, because it may possibly have escaped his notice that he was supposed to have cooked for Ron and Hermione tonight. He poked around in his head for ideas. "I thought we could get a takeaway?"

"I could murder a curry," Ron said, plucking the wine out of Harry's grip and heading for the kitchen. 

"Um—" Harry said, because it wasn't just that he'd forgotten he was cooking tonight, it was also that—

"Malfoy," Ron said, stopping dead in the kitchen doorway. 

"Weasley," Draco said coldly. Five minutes ago he'd been perfectly cordial, sharing the results of his most recent healer appointment with Harry and listing the potions he'd been prescribed to protect their baby against a selection of magical and muggle maladies so that Harry could add them to his list of important things he might need to know in the future. Now Draco seemed almost carved out of ice. 

"Hermione's persuaded Professor McGonagall to put PSHE on the curriculum at Hogwarts," Harry said, for want of something better to say. 

Draco raised an eyebrow. "What now?"

"Personal, social, and health eduction," Hermione said, pushing past Ron so she could get to the corkscrew, which didn't seem a bad idea to Harry, all things considered. "Seemed like a good idea to spread information rather than misinformation."

"You know that Potter's not still at Hogwarts, right?" Draco said. "It's a bit too late for him."

"I've read a book," Harry said, sniffing. 

" _After_ you knocked someone up," Ron said. "Not a terrible idea to share the information before the, you know—" he went a bit red— "impregnating."

For a moment, everyone around the table went some shade of fuchsia. 

"Marvellous job of secret keeping, Potter," Draco said. "Did you invite Skeeter around for tea too, or is that next week?"

Harry rolled his eyes. "They're not going to tell anyone."

"Um," Hermione said, cracking open the wine and turning the bottle straight upside down to decant furiously into a jug. Someone had once told her this was the equivalent of letting it breathe, and as Harry had no fucking idea whether it was or not, she continued to do it every time they met for dinner, and Harry proffered no alternative opinion, although this time Draco did wince. "But aren't they going to notice when the two of you pop up with a baby?"

This time Draco's gaze met his. 

"I didn't—" Harry said. He let out a breath. He hadn't told them that Draco didn't want this baby, that he'd be bringing it up alone. 

Draco shook his head minutely, and Harry shut up for a moment. 

"They won't tell anyone," Harry said finally. "I trust them."

"Good," Draco said, and then Draco ended up staying for a chicken biryani and a very odd game of Bop It, and no one mentioned the soft curve of his belly where their baby was, or what was going to happen next. 

~*~

Harry continued to buy things for the nursery, up to and including a _spell-it-yourself decorative border set_ , which allowed him to spread wallpapered greenery around the room to the green background of his dubious paint job. He had little bookshelves and little drawers, and far too many baby clothes that had tiny animals all over them. He'd bought all of it from muggle shops, still wary of someone discovering his secret, and only vaguely because he still had no idea where to get magical baby stuff without raising suspicion. 

When Hermione and Ron came over, he kept the nursery door closed, and when Draco came over to keep him updated about his appointments with his healer, Harry kept meaning to tell him, but he never quite found the right moment. 

If he was entirely honest, Harry was still mostly convinced that the whole thing was just a dream and at the end of it, he and Draco would go back to their normal lives and only see each other every six months when they were in the pub at the same time, and none of this would have ever happened. Honestly, fucking by the light of the moon was a ridiculously stupid thing, and it was still not Harry's fault he didn't know what the hell he was doing. 

~*~

"It's a boy," Draco said, after Harry answered the door to a relatively frenzied ring of the doorbell. "They told me it's a boy."

Harry's brain did a helpful white-out at this, which was all fine and dandy until he came back down to earth with a bump and realised Draco Malfoy had dissolved into sobs in Harry's entrance hall. 

Harry, never that good in an emotional crisis, patted him awkwardly on the arm. "Are you okay?"

Draco managed to look incredulous at the same time as weeping, which Harry thought he probably deserved. "How are you still alive?"

"Excessively good luck," Harry said. "Would you like a biscuit?"

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Draco said, still crying. "I hate you." There was a pause as he produced a neatly folded handkerchief from a pocket in his robes. He blew his nose. "I thought you said there were biscuits."

Their baby was the length of a carrot. 

~*~

"And he just started crying?" Ron asked, a little incredulously. "Ferret Face Malfoy?"

"He's pregnant, Ron," Hermione said. There was a fond sort of exasperation wrought across her face. "The hormones."

"Yes, I know about hormones," Ron said, "I'm not an idiot. I'm just amazed Draco Malfoy can demonstrate any kind of emotion other than gigantic fuckwit. Sorry, Harry, I know you had sex with him once."

Harry - who for a moment had got distracted remembering the hot, drunken flush of that evening, of Draco with his head tipped back, sweat beading across his skin, lost in himself - blinked. "I was drunk," he said, because it was the only thing to be said. 

"So you said," Hermione rolled her eyes. "I hope you didn't leave him crying in your hall."

"I offered him a biscuit," Harry said, a little uncomfortably. "I had a packet of ginger nuts."

Ron opened his mouth to make the appropriate joke, but Hermione hit him with a cushion and Harry allowed himself permission to consider the joke made. 

"He's going through an awful lot," Hermione said. "You've got to remember, he wasn't planning to be a parent either."

Harry considered telling them that Draco wasn't going to be bringing the baby up, but it just didn't seem the right time. Draco had been inconsolable in his kitchen, sitting at the table and crying through half a packet of ginger biscuits and two cups of tea, and Harry hadn't known what the fuck to do except to keep boiling the kettle. 

And then he'd just left, leaving Harry with the knowledge that he was going to have a _son_ , and that Draco wasn't having anything at all. 

~*~

Harry bought a large mango on the way to Draco's flat for a takeaway and conspicuous non-discussion of their impending child, because that was how big the book said their child was, and because he quite liked mango and had never actually bought one. 

Draco, however, looked pale when he answered the door. 

"I brought you a mango," Harry said, instead of saying, _are you okay_ , or perhaps, _you're not going to cry again, are you?_

Draco looked at the mango. "What are you," he said, probably to Harry, but still staring at the mango. "Why are you."

"Hermione says if you can put up with how crap I am on a day to day basis, I'm really quite worth knowing," Harry said. "I think she takes it as a personal affront every time I don't know something."

"Like how babies are made." Draco didn't do the decent thing and step back out of the way to let Harry into his flat. 

"I'm mostly clear on how babies are made normally," Harry said. "I was lacking some of the finer points of detail regarding the power of the fucking moon."

"You had a werewolf for a teacher. Moons are important."

"Yes, well." Harry nudged his way inside, past Draco and the curve of his stomach beneath his pullover, and in the direction of the metal hooks in the hallway so he could shrug off his cloak and hang it up. "Again, not my fault the subject didn't come up. And I was hardly going to get the birds and the bees talk from my aunt and uncle, was I?" 

"I have no idea," Draco said, leaning past Harry to take his cloak off the hook and hang it up again, but tidier. "Didn't you?"

Harry rolled his eyes. "No," he said. "How do you feel about pizza?"

"I've never had it," Draco said. 

"Oh my god," Harry said, and went into Draco's living room to sit down heavily on a black and chrome sofa and look suitably pained at the idea of never having eaten pizza. 

"The only finger food we had at the manor were canapés," Draco said. "And in the grand scheme of things, me never having had pizza is not quite the same as you not knowing that men could get pregnant."

"Perhaps," Harry agreed. "So, do you want to go out and have pizza, then? If we do, we don't have to talk about anything else important at all."

"Great idea," Draco said. "Although I do have some lingering questions about why you've brought me a mango."

"According to my book, it's the size of our baby," Harry said, and for a moment, Draco's face stilled, like he was carved out of stone. 

"Really," he said. He took the mango and held it in his hand. "Our baby," he said softly, before he put the mango down on the coffee table and looked back up at Harry. "We should go now."

 _Our baby_ , Harry thought, and for a moment, his chest hurt. 

~*~

"Are you ever going to tell me what you're doing in Basingstoke?" Harry asked, when Draco was 27 weeks pregnant and their baby was the size of a cauliflower. "Why you're living in a Muggle flat?"

Draco had come from an appointment with his healer. He'd brought ravioli from an Italian restaurant just next to his healer's, apparently, and was watching as Harry heated up garlic bread in the oven. His cloak had got a little more material than it had before, draped a bit more carefully to cover up his bump, but once he'd hung that up in Harry's cloak cupboard, there wasn't much hiding his pregnancy. 

"No," Draco said. Harry was upending salad leaves into a bowl, and half-heartedly quartering tomatoes. Draco, because he was forever perturbed by Harry never dressing his salads, started rummaging in his cupboards for oil and mustard and balsamic vinegar. 

"Come on," Harry said. "I'll tell you a secret about me in return."

"You haven't got any," Draco said. "I know all yours. You're not the brightest spark, you had no idea wizards could get pregnant, and you think you can feed babies cheese."

"I don't any more," Harry said. "And I didn't really then, either. I just wasn't exactly certain when cheese, you know, entered the whole food chain thing."

"Sometimes I wonder how you're going to manage to sustain life."

There was an awkward pause. Draco continued to bury himself in the cupboard. 

"I've sustained my life long enough," Harry said, after a while. "And it's not like I haven't been feeding myself since I was about three."

Draco looked at him. Harry looked back. A lot of things remained unsaid, which was probably to the relief of both of them. 

"You tell me about Basingstoke," Harry said finally, "and I'll show you the nursery."

"There's a nursery?" Draco said softly. 

Harry nodded. "Yeah," he said. "I made it myself."

In this light, it looked a lot like Draco was paler than before. There was another pause. "Pansy's an Estate Agent," he said finally. "She was struggling. I thought if I rented somewhere it might help her out and might make us friends again. And I wanted to… not be at home anymore."

"Did it work?" Harry asked, when it became clear that Draco wasn't going to say anything else.

"She still has her job," Draco said. "But no, we're not exactly friends."

Harry hadn't known they weren't friends. He didn't ask what had happened. He just took the garlic bread out of the oven, chucked a warming charm at it, and led Draco upstairs to see the nursery. 

"Do you like it?" he asked, once he'd opened the door and turned the lamps on and Draco could see the green walls and trailing greenery frieze, and all the flat pack furniture he'd put together with all the baby clothes and blankets he'd bought in preparation to meet their son. "I made sure it had a view over the garden."

"It's fine," Draco said shortly, and turned back around to go down into the kitchen. He sat at the table and waited for Harry to divide up their dinner. 

Glancing back to ask him how much garlic bread he wanted, Harry caught him scrubbing at his eyes with a crisp, white handkerchief, and stayed quiet. 

~*~

"So how are you two going to divvy up childcare?" Hermione asked, settling down into the armchair with a glass of rose. "Have you started talking about it?"

"It's sorted," Harry said, without making eye contact. Draco was 31 weeks pregnant. Their baby was the size of a coconut, which was apparently bigger than a cabbage, which had been last week's milestone. Harry had had to do some considerable reworking of his understanding of vegetables in general, since he'd always considered cauliflowers to be significantly larger than his baby book apparently believed them to be. 

"Come on, Harry. You can't ignore this. You're going to have to step up and look after your child sometimes," Hermione said, leaning over to tap him on the knee. "You need to start thinking about where they're going to sleep, what you need to buy to look after them, all that sort of stuff."

"It's sorted," Harry said, because it was. It was all sorted. Their baby was coming home with him, to his green nursery and his drawers of baby clothes, and there was no need to work out a schedule with Draco, because Draco wasn't going to be a part of it. Every time he thought about it, it started to feel like a heavier and heavier weight in his chest. Draco never talked about the nursery, and he never talked about after their baby was born, and he never talked about anything other than what the healer had said in their latest appointment, and nonsense about the history of whatever food they were eating to fill the space. 

Sometimes, Harry would glance over and see the line of his throat or the tilt of his chin and remember how beautiful Draco had looked that night, bathed in moonlight and breathless under Harry's touch. How beautiful he was now, pregnant with their child, his hand curved around his stomach. How Draco didn't want to be a part of seeing their child grow, and Harry had no choice but to respect his wishes because it was all he could fucking offer him. 

"It's your baby, Harry," Hermione said. 

"He's my son," Harry said sharply. "He's my son and I know how I'm going to look after him, so get off my back."

He couldn't remember ever walking out of Hermione and Ron's before, but there always had to be a first time. 

~*~

"Do you think we should talk about names?" Harry asked, when he was sprawled on Draco's uncomfortable sofa and picking miserably at a bowl of pasta and pesto. He saw Draco a couple of times a week or more now, and he liked it. They ate food and watched Draco's Muggle TV and Draco lectured him about the right way to chop an onion or buy cheese or what cut of meat went into which kind of meal. They couldn't talk about anything important so they talked about food instead, and it filled the time and kept them busy and bickering and at some point it would all be all right and Harry would feel like he could breathe again. 

Draco stopped pushing his pasta around his plate. He didn't look up. "Don't call him after anyone. Don't call him anything he has to live up to. Don't call him anything which singles him out. Give him the best chance you can."

Harry, unaccountably, wanted to cry. He swallowed. "Something normal, then. Something plain."

"Something he can make his own," Draco said. "No expectations."

"John," Harry said. "Something like that?"

"John's fine," Draco said, and still didn't look up. "But he's your baby, you can call him what you want."

John, Harry thought. Jonathan. Johnny. Jonny. "Jonny," he said. "Jonny Malfoy Potter."

"Jonny Potter," Draco said, and he turned his face away, pretending to reach for the salt. He wiped his eye on his sleeve. "Not Malfoy. He doesn't get my name. My name stops with me."

Harry didn't know why he did it, but he reached over and wrapped his hand around Draco's, squeezing, and Draco didn't pull away. 

~*~

Ron stopped by for lunch, bringing Harry a cheese and onion pasty, and a pumpkin pasty for himself. "Come on," he said. "Rain's stopped. You can find half an hour for a bit of lunch."

They hadn't really talked since Harry had walked out. Harry had more important things to worry about, like the cracks in Draco's marble exterior. Like their son, who couldn't have Draco's name. 

Ron waited until they were far enough away from everyone that they could speak freely. Harry, ever mindful of beetles, cast a silencing charm anyway, just because he could. 

"So. A boy?"

"My son," Harry said. "I might not be all that bright, but I wasn't ever not going to look after him."

"Come on," Ron said. "Make it up with her. You can't blame her for asking. It's not like this hasn't been, like, a bit unconventional so far."

"Fine," Harry said, because it wasn't really Hermione he'd been mad at, and he might be a bit thick when it came to mating by the light of the moon, but he could tell when he was taking it out on his best friend a little unfairly. "Fine, all right. I'll make it up with her."

"Good," Ron said, and passed him a chocolate frog. "You can have that for afters now."

"Withholding pudding is a crime," Harry said, and elbowed him. 

Ron elbowed him back, but then he sighed. "Now's the bit where you get mad at me. I need you to tell Mum. You can't spring this on her in a couple of months when the baby's born and you're a part-time dad. She'll be gutted, mate. For a start you won't have given her any time to knit."

Harry made a face. "Do I have to?"

"Pretty sure you do, yes. What are you going to do, turn up one weekend with a baby? You've got to."

"It's less than six weeks," Harry said. "Just so you know. It's not two months."

"Coming up quick," Ron said. "You figured out where you're going to put the cot yet?"

"It's all sorted," Harry said. "You don't need to worry." He doesn't know why he's not told them about the nursery. Why he's not shown them it any of the hundreds of times they've been over. Why he's not told them that he'll be bringing their baby up by himself. Why Draco doesn't want to be a part of it. 

"Sorted like you were sorted for Tri-Wizard Cup, or properly sorted?"

"Properly sorted," Harry said. "Swear to you. The baby could come tomorrow and it'd be all right."

"Then you've got to tell my mum."

"I will," Harry said, and he finished his cheese and onion pasty and watched the rubbish float by in the canal, and wished things were just a little bit different. 

~*~

"I'm going to go abroad, I think," Draco said. They were eating cake in Draco's flat. He didn't like to come to Harry's anymore. Hadn't since the day Harry had shown him the nursery. "After the baby's born. The lease is almost up on this place, and it's not like Pansy's going to come back and be friends with me now, and I can't go home. So. Abroad."

"Mate," Harry said. It hurt, deep down in his chest. 

"We're not mates," Draco said. He kept stroking his bump, but whenever he noticed he was doing it, he stopped. "We're not friends, Harry."

"Aren't we?"

Draco looked at him then. "We can't be," he said. "Because I can't walk away from another friend, Harry, and I've got to walk away from this. I have to. And I can't look back, so please don't ask me to."

Harry nodded, and then turned to look out of the window. 

"Are you all ready?"

"Yeah," Harry said. "I've just got to tell Molly."

"Molly?"

"Ron's mum. She'd be gutted if she didn't know."

"Don't tell her about me." He sounded urgent, grabbing Harry's wrist. "Please don't tell her about me."

"I won't," Harry said, and Draco didn't let go of his wrist. "I promise I won't."

Draco loosened his grip a little, but didn't let go. "All right," he said finally. "All right."

~*~

"You're what," Molly said. 

"Having a baby," Harry said. They were in the kitchen at the Burrow, two cups of tea on the table between them, the mixing dish hovering over the counter, mid-mix. "Well, I'm not. Somebody else is. But it's mine."

"Harry."

He cupped his hands around his mug. "Don't be mad," he said. "It's been complicated."

"I didn't know you were seeing anyone."

Harry didn't quite know how to answer that. In the end, he went for, "It didn't quite work out."

"But there's a baby."

"Yeah," Harry said. "Next month, there's going to be a baby." He swallowed. "A baby boy, actually. My son."

"Oh, Harry," she said. "Oh, Harry, my boy. Congratulations."

And Harry, surprising even himself, felt his guard crumble, and he started to cry. 

~*~

"He's kicking," Draco said, and even Harry could see the little indentation in Draco's belly as their baby made himself known. "He's kicking."

"I can see," Harry said. 

Draco glanced at him, then down at his stomach. "Come feel."

"Are you sure?"

Draco didn't look at him again. "I'm sure," he said, and Harry came and placed his hand on Draco's stomach, and felt his baby kick. 

His baby, their baby, their magical moonlit baby. 

Harry kept one hand on Draco's belly, and used his other to cup Draco's cheek. Draco's eyes were wet. 

"Don't," he said, as Harry rested his forehead against his. "Please don't."

Harry didn't kiss him. He didn't do anything. "I wish we could," he said finally, and Draco made a strangled, desperate sound in the back of his throat. 

It resonated through Harry's chest. It hurt. 

Their baby kicked again, and Harry stepped back, and out of touching distance. He didn't look away, and neither did Draco. 

~*~

Hermione brought wine. 

"Ron's coming later," she said. "He's bringing cake and a roast chicken."

"A good mix," Harry said, and then he stumbled into Hermione's arms and buried his face in her shoulder. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have snapped."

"I shouldn't have assumed you hadn't sorted stuff like that out."

"I'm rubbish at everything else," Harry said, pulling away. "Up to and including getting someone pregnant. I'm just all right at this bit of it."

"I think you're going to be a good dad," she said. "I don't know if you thought that that wasn't what I was saying."

"It's not that. It's just a bit complicated. But I'm ready. It's fine."

She headed into the kitchen for a bottle opener. "And Draco? How's he doing?"

Lonely and desperately sad, Harry thought. Desperately, desperately sad. "All right," he said. 

"Bet he's desperate for him to be born now. Excited to meet him, I'm sure."

"Something like that," Harry said. He got the bottle opener out of the drawer and handed it over. Hermione did a semi-expert job at opening the bottle and Harry leaned back against the counter. 

"Have you sorted something at work?" she asked, getting out two wine glasses and pouring them both a glass of white. "Got some time off booked?"

"Something like that," Harry said again. He'd resigned, two days ago. In a month he'd be out of a job. He'd weighed up childcare against having to leave his baby day after day, and it wasn't like his bank balance couldn't stretch to accommodate supporting them both for a while. It had been healthy enough before he'd left school, but they'd shoved him up on enough stages for enough appearance and speaker fees since then that he was going to be fine for a long time. 

He should tell Hermione and Ron how things were going to play out, because it wasn't like they weren't going to find out, but he couldn't. He just couldn't.

"I'm glad we're friends again," Hermione said. "I hate falling out with you."

"Me too," Harry said. "But you don't need to worry. I've got it all sorted out."

She smiled at him. "Proud of you," she said. "And not just because you're the reason Hogwarts finally has a PSHE curriculum."

"Rub it in, why don't you. In my defence, I maintain no one actually told me it was possible to knock someone up by the light of the fucking moon."

Hermione snorted. "Oh god," she said. "You're going to be a dad."

Harry buried his face in her shoulder again. "Oh god. I am."

~*~

Their baby was about to be the size of a watermelon. Draco wasn't sleeping and his back hurt and he permanently looked like he was on the edge of tears. Harry had taken to going over in the evenings and putting the telly on so they could watch ridiculous mysteries and he could hold Draco's hand and pretend not to see him cry. Harry had never really imagined having a family of his own, beyond a nebulous, sort of cloudy future plan to be normal in a way he never had been growing up, but he wasn't entirely sure that a tearful, hormonal Draco Malfoy who refused to talk about anything but the TV had featured anywhere in his plans. 

"You can change your mind, you know," Harry said softly, half way through an episode of Midsomer Murders. 

"I can't," Draco said, stony-faced, and he held on tight to Harry's hand and didn't look away from the TV. 

Harry, for want of something better to do, stayed where he was, and kept holding on. 

~*~

"What the fucking _fuck_ , Harry," Hermione yelled, barging past him and into his front hall, Ron in tow. "What the fuck?"

Harry, who was half way through warming up a Marks and Spencer ready meal because he'd had to do a last minute trip to Mothercare for more nappies for newborns because he was scared he didn't have enough and still didn't know where the fuck to buy baby stuff that wasn't fucking Muggle, looked relatively bewildered. The possibilities at this point were a little bit endless. "What have I done now?"

"I don't fucking know," Hermione said, "how about quitting your fucking job and not telling us?"

"Ah," Harry said. 

"You can tell how mad she is because of how much she's swearing," Ron said helpfully. "You can tell how furious I am, because I'm not."

Harry glanced at him. Ron did, in fact, look furious. 

"We all just got the memo," Hermione said, holding a scrunched up bit of parchment in her hand. "You didn't want a leaving party and you've spent the last month handing over all your casework. You've left. It makes it sound like you've been fired and they're trying to cover it up."

"I've not been fired," Harry said. "I just didn't want anyone talking about it."

"Well you've fucked that right up the wall," Hermione said. She was bright red, which meant she was about to explode. 

In the kitchen, the microwave pinged. Harry turned around and went back in there to get his dinner out. It was hot and he almost dropped it. He put it on the side, gave it a stir, and then re-covered it so it could sit for a minute. 

"Harry," Ron said sharply. "What's going on."

Harry covered his face with his hands for a moment, and let out a breath. "Sit down," he said. "There's something i've got to tell you."

~*~

The message came in the middle of the night. 

_It's starting_ , it said, in Draco's shaking hand. _Please come_. 

Harry barely stopped for shoes and socks. 

~*~

Draco's private healer had a cottage hospital on the south coast, near the cliffs. Harry thought he could hear the sea. 

"He's through here, Mr Potter," the healer said, and Harry launched himself out of the chair and through the doorway into the room where Draco was.

"You came," Draco said. He was flushed and sweating, his labour not that far progressed. 

"Course I did," Harry said, and he went over and wrapped his arms around Draco's shaking shoulders. "Of course I came."

"I'm scared," Draco said. "It hurts."

"I know," Harry said, although he knew fucking nothing about this other than what he'd read in his book. He could have asked Molly, but he hadn't known how. He didn't have anyone else. He'd always been fucking alone when it came to finding out how the world worked. It never seemed like that was going to change. He kissed Draco's temple. "I'm sorry."

Draco clung to his hand. "I didn't want to be alone."

"You're not," Harry said fiercely. "You're not alone."

Draco didn't let go of him, not when the healer was examining him, or when they were putting up the screens, or casting the spells to minimise the pain. 

It was hours, and Draco didn't let go of him, not once. 

And then, at the end of it all, there was an angry, tiny, fierce wail, and a baby. 

Their baby. Their son. 

Their tiny, magical, moonlight son. 

Draco turned his head away, and refused to hold him. 

The healer tucked their baby into the crook of Harry's elbow instead. Red-faced and angry, fiercely furious at being forced into the world, he was scrunched up, fists clenched, knees up to his chest. He cried in tiny, angry little wails, and Harry gathered him to his chest and knew that everything he'd ever known had changed, forever. He leaned in and pressed a kiss, his baby's first, to his forehead. 

When he looked up, Draco was watching him, eyes wet. "Is he all right?"

Harry nodded. "Yes."

"Good," Draco said. "Show him to me."

Harry sat down and shifted so that Draco could see him, could meet their son, their little boy. Draco didn't reach for him once, and tried to hide his tears. 

"Jonny Potter," Draco said. "Your baby boy."

Harry wanted to weep. "Ours," he said. "Even if you don't bring him up, he's still ours. He'll always be ours, and you can change your mind."

"I won't," Draco said. "I'm very single-minded."

"I know," Harry said. "But I want you to know you can."

"Draco needs to get some rest," the healer said. "You can wait with the baby in a separate room. We've prepared one for you both."

Draco reached out then, touching Harry's arm. "Don't come back," he said. "Don't bring him back. Please."

"Fuck," Harry said.

"Please," Draco said. 

Harry didn't know what to do, so he leaned in and pressed his mouth to Draco's. "I promise you I'll look after him. I swear it."

"You'd better," Draco said, and then he turned to face the window and he didn't look back, and Harry had no choice but to stand up with his baby, and leave. 

~*~

Draco had been moved to a different room, and Harry didn't know where. He was doing fine, the healer said, healing well and on the way to being able to go home. Harry hadn't ever asked if he had somebody to look after him when he got there. Or when it was he was going to leave to go abroad. 

He went home with Jonny the following day, cradling him close and already fiercely in love. How was it that his heart could simultaneously feel like it was shattering, and growing exponentially to encompass everything he felt for his son? 

Jonny slept in a tiny nest of blankets in the basket next to him on the sofa, and Harry wrote to Draco, wrote down everything he'd said to him in the hospital - _you can change your mind_ and _I'll honour your decision but know that you don't have to make it_ and _he'll always be ours_. And then, lastly, _I never thought you looked so beautiful as you did that night._ He signed it, _all our love, H &J_. 

He didn't get a response, but in reality, he'd never expected one. 

~*~

Molly took one look at him and cried, which Harry had half-expected but still didn't know quite what to do with. Ron had given him a look of half raised-eyebrows, half understanding, and then begged a hold of him, so perhaps Harry just wasn't prepared to deal with anyone's reaction to the presentation of Harry's baby son. Hermione just got all soft around the edges and then curled up on the sofa with Jonny sleeping in the curve of her elbow, which gave Harry a good five minutes to make himself a cup of tea and stare out into the garden. 

Ron came and touched his arm. "You all right?"

"It's weird," Harry said. "I love him, probably more than anything I've ever loved in my life, and at the same time, I feel like my heart's broken."

Ron, to his credit, didn't say anything that would make Harry feel like he wanted to punch a wall. "Have you heard from him?"

"No," Harry said. "I don't think I'd ever for one second considered what it would be like to leave him there and walk away. For him to say _don't come back_." For a second, he thought the tears were going to come, and he was going to give himself away. 

Ron rubbed his back. "He's made his choice. From what you said, it doesn't sound like it was easy for him."

"It wasn't," Harry said. Then, "I don't think I knew I loved him before this."

Ron wrapped an arm around Harry's shoulders. "I'm sorry, mate."

"I know," Harry said. "Do you think he's all right?"

"I don't know," Ron said. Neither of them said that they wouldn't be, if it was them. 

~*~

The doorbell woke him up at half past three in the morning. Harry, exhausted and not entirely certain he'd heard it right, stumbled downstairs with his wand in one hand and wrapped in his blanket. 

"Hello?" he said, before opening the door. It wasn't the most effective anti-burglar strategy but in his defence, Jonny had been sleeping in two hour bursts since Harry had got him home, and Harry hadn't slept through the night in two weeks. 

"Harry," Draco said, and he was crying, and Harry couldn't get the door open quick enough. "Harry, I can't do this."

Harry pulled him inside and out of the cold. It was freezing outside, and Draco was barely dressed for it, shivering in his cloak even as Harry wrapped the blanket around his shoulders and pulled him into a hug. "It's okay," he said. "It's okay, Draco."

"It's not," Draco said. "I shouldn't be here. I can't be here."

"Hey, it's okay," Harry said, rubbing Draco's arms because he was so fucking cold. "It's okay, love, it's okay. Let's get you warm."

"I can't see him," Draco said. "Please don't let me see him."

Harry's heart wanted to break. "He's sleeping," he said. "It's all right. Come into the kitchen. I'll make us both a drink and you can get warm."

But Draco hadn't stopped shivering even after the kettle had boiled and Harry had made them both some hot chocolate. He was so pale, with dark shadows under his eyes and his cloak thrown on over his pyjamas. 

"You shouldn't have gone outside in this," he said finally. "It's too cold."

"Needed to get out," Draco said. "Can't stay in the flat. Just been walking."

"In just that? It's winter." Harry didn't know what to do, but Draco had to get warm, and he had to stop shaking. "Come on. Let's get you upstairs and into the bath."

"Don't need a bath."

"I think you do," Harry said, and then he slipped his arm around Draco's shoulders and took him upstairs and into the bathroom, letting the old pipes creak into life so that Harry could run him a warm bath. Then he helped Draco out of his clothes, and into the water, and tried not to make it look like he was sobbing on the inside. "When was the last time you slept?"

"Can't sleep," Draco said. "Can't do anything."

"Why not?"

Draco looked at him then, eyes wide and wet. "I want my son," he said. "I can't have him and I want him so badly. Please, please don't let me see him. I can't bear to leave him again."

"I promise," Harry said, because Draco needed him to, and because Draco hadn't slept. He went to get Draco some pyjamas, and then came back into the bathroom to help him out of the bath and get dry. Then, for want of something better to do, he put Draco to bed in his bed, and stayed with him until he fell asleep. 

Then he went to sit in the nursery with their son, and fell asleep in the armchair with one of Jonny's blankets draped over him to keep out the cold. 

~*~

Jonny was still tiny and more red-faced than not, but he was starting to uncurl a little, starting to stretch out his legs as he took his bottle from Harry's arms. Harry had no clue what he was doing at any given time, but Jonny appeared to be doing okay for a very new baby, in that he wasn't losing weight and he was sleeping and crying and eating and using his nappy and the visiting healer seemed happy. Harry wasn't entirely sure he could recognise any of those things on his own, because his life had shrunk down to two hour intervals of waking and crying and feeding and changing and sleeping, and because he was so worried about Draco he couldn't fucking see straight anyway, but somehow that was magnified by Draco actually being in his house. 

"That's my boy," Harry said softly, once Jonny was done with his bottle. He leaned down to kiss the top of Jonny's head before settling him against his chest to rub his back, holding him gently. "Aren't you a good boy? Such a good boy."

Jonny responded in the only way he knew how, which was to regurgitate milk down Harry's neck, because Harry hadn't remembered to put down a cloth. 

"Deserved that, didn't I?" he said, cradling him. Jonny blinked at him with wide eyes. Babies this little weren't supposed to be able to focus, but Jonny kept staring at him very intensely, which reminded Harry a little of how Draco used to stare at him across the Great Hall every mealtime, so quite frankly he was very clearly theirs. He leaned in close and stuck his tongue out, and after a moment, Jonny's tongue peeked out too. "Such a clever boy."

And then he carried Jonny over to the nursery window so that Jonny could see outside, to the garden where he'd play when he got older, and he held him close and tried not to think about his other daddy, and what he was going through. 

~*~

Draco was gone when Harry went to check his bedroom after Jonny had fallen asleep again. The bed was made, but the extra blanket was gone, which made Harry hope that Draco was just downstairs. 

He found him in the living room, curled up on the sofa with the blanket over him, a little knitted octopus that Molly had made for Jonny tucked up against his chest. 

"Hi."

"Hi," Draco said. "Is the baby all right?"

Harry nodded. He came to sit down on the sofa by Draco's feet. "How about you?"

"Oh," Draco said. "So-so."

"Yeah," Harry said. "Please don't go."

Draco looked at him. "I can't stay."

"Why not?"

"I wouldn't be good for him," Draco said. "I couldn't be. You know what I was like. It's the only thing I know. I can't— I can't be that to him. I can't ever do that to him. I'm giving him the only thing I know how to give him. I'm giving him up."

Harry reached out and took Draco's hand. He laced their fingers together. "You're the bravest person I know," he said. He swallowed. "It doesn't make you right, though."

Draco looked at him. "I can't. What if I made him into me? What if my father made him into him?"

"What if you didn't? What if I didn't make him into my childhood? What if we just let him be him? What if he was just happy?"

"I had everything and I was unhappy," Draco said. "I was so fucking unhappy. I have nothing to give him. I'll just teach him how to be a bully and how to take and how to not be able to figure out what the right fucking thing to do is."

Harry lifted their joined hands and kissed the back of Draco's hand. It felt like an odd thing to do. He'd never done anything like that before. "I think sometimes at school there were rumours. About what it was like at home when I wasn't at Hogwarts," he said finally. He felt Draco's stutter, rather than heard it. "I have no idea how to show him he's part of a family. I have no idea how to show him that he's loved. You're trusting me with him but I don't know what I'm doing."

"You wouldn't hurt him."

"Neither would you. You love him. We both do."

"So much," Draco said. "Which is why I have to do this. I've spent nine months knowing this is the right thing to do. I can't just change my mind because I'm weak."

"Why not?"

"Because I can't. Because me wanting him doesn't change the truth. I'll be bad for him. My name will be bad for him. It's not like people want me around now."

"I want you around. Jonny wants you around."

Draco looked at him then, and Harry knew he'd lost. 

"Jonny doesn't know me, and he's better off for it." He leaned in and pressed a kiss to Harry's mouth. "You're both better off for it."

"We're not," Harry said, but Draco was already on his feet. Harry tried to pull him back into another hug, but Draco was already out the door and into the hall. 

By the time Harry got to the front door, he was properly gone, apparated away into nothing. 

~*~

"You need to leave the house," Hermione said. "It's been days and days since you've been out."

"We've been in the garden," Harry said, who was holding Jonny in his lap. "We've seen the sunshine. We've seen the clouds. Haven't we, lad?"

"You've not seen your family," Hermione said. "Come on. Come to Sunday lunch at the Burrow. Show Jonny off."

"We're fine where we are," Harry said. 

Hermione sat down next to him, and very firmly removed Jonny from Harry's arms. "I want a cuddle," she said. "And you need a shower. He'll be fine for twenty minutes. Have a shower. And you need to leave the house. You can't sit here and wait for Draco to ring the doorbell."

"I can't not be here if he does, though."

"I think maybe… you might have to be."

Harry looked at her. "He's not okay."

"I know," she said. "And I'm sorry for that, but you have to look after this one. Which means showering. And leaving the house. And letting him meet his family."

"He can't meet them before he meets his dad. He can't."

Hermione tried to smile. "He might not be right but he's trying to do the best thing for Jonny. You might just have to respect that."

"I don't want to."

"I know," she said. "But it doesn't mean you don't have to. Go and have a shower and I'll make you a sandwich."

Harry did, but only because he had no fucking clue what else he was supposed to do. 

~*~

The Weasleys adopted Jonny as one of their own within four seconds of meeting him, which meant that Harry was relieved of childcare duties for a few minutes, and also that he could let himself be hugged by Molly and bundled onto the sofa in the living room for a bit of a sit down. 

"New babies always take it out of you," she told him, sitting him down. "You sit here and I'll bring you a cup of tea. They'll be fawning over that little boy for a few minutes, you can have a break."

He made the obligatory complaints, but if he was honest, he was exhausted. He was asleep before Molly had even come back with the tea. 

~*~

Ron showed up in advance of Hermione, bearing a chicken salad, some casserole dishes that he swore could just be warmed up whenever Harry was hungry, and a cake tin. Harry, who had slept for four hours in one go and consequently felt slightly less terrible than he had done for the past week, was relatively proud that he hadn't dropped to his knees in front of Ron just to beg him never to leave. 

"I'll put the tea on," Ron said, "then I'll come and have a hold of the baby."

"Good," Harry said, because he'd got as far as laying out the quilt Molly had made for him on the floor and laying Jonny on it, and not much further. He succumbed to temptation and curled up next to Jonny on the blanket, letting him grab onto one of his fingers and hold tight. There was a selection of toys in easy reach, but Harry contented himself with just booping Jonny on the nose with his fingertip, which Jonny seemed to like — or at least, not actively hate. At this point some of those emotions seemed one and the same. 

When the doorbell rang, Ron called, "That'll be Hermione. I'll get it."

Harry didn't even bother getting up. He only had a certain amount of energy these days and he was saving it for necessities. 

"Hi, Hermione," he called, trying not to be too loud. 

"Hi," Hermione said, but she sounded a little careful. "Harry—"

She was with Draco, who was standing in the doorway to Harry's living room, staring at Jonny. 

"Hi, Draco," Harry said, after a pause. "Why don't you come over here and meet your son."

Hermione's hand was in the small of Draco's back. "Go on," she said. "It's all right. You won't hurt him. Promise."

Harry held a hand out. "Come on," he said. "He's been waiting for you."

Draco looked like he might bolt. Harry just kept holding his hand out, trying not to let his terror show on his face. 

And then Draco walked over, and took Harry's hand, and dropped to his knees on the quilt. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm so, so sorry."

"It's not too late," Harry said. "Come say hello to our son." 

A sob caught in the back of Draco's throat, even as Harry was cradling Jonny in his hands, and letting Draco come closer, close enough that Harry could settle Jonny in Draco's arms and let him hold his son for the very first time. 

"I'm sorry," Draco said, but this time it wasn't directed at Harry, and Draco was crying. "I'm so sorry, Jonny, that I wasn't here."

"It doesn't matter," Harry said. "You're here now."

"I didn't want to hurt him."

Harry clambered to his knees, and wrapped his arm around Draco's shoulders, pressing his mouth to Draco's temple. "You're not your father. You're not who you used to be. I promise you."

"I wanted him so much."

"I know," Harry said. "I know you did."

"Harry—" 

"It's all right," Harry said, kissing his temple again. "Everything's going to be all right."

It had to, at least, be better than it had been so far. 

~*~

They ate chicken and pomegranate salad sitting side by side on the quilt, Jonny laying in front of them, seemingly quite content and not at all asleep. Hermione and Ron had made their excuses a while earlier, before dinner, leaving them strict instructions not to forget to eat. 

They had forgotten for a while, until Jonny had reminded them that food had to come on a relatively strict and frequent timetable around here, face scrunched up and little tears suggesting that no one had ever actually fed him before in his life. Draco looked distressed, until Harry told him that he'd better get used to seeing this little palaver multiple times a day. Then Draco had held Jonny, looking vaguely terrified, whilst Harry had made him a bottle, and then Draco had fed him, holding his son in the curve of his elbow with his expression swapping regularly between joy and terror. 

And then, they'd eaten. 

"Can I stay?" Draco asked, after he'd devoured every last pomegranate seed in his bowl. "I can't leave him again so soon. I just can't. I'm sorry. I'll go tomorrow."

Harry drew his knee up to his chest. "Why don't you just stay?" he said. "He's our son. There's space here. Why don't we just… see how it goes?"

Draco looked at him. "Harry—"

"You're not still planning on going abroad, are you?"

"Of course not."

"Well, then. You're miserable in that flat. I've got space."

"Just like that?"

Harry lifted a shoulder, then dropped it again. "I don't think any of this could even possibly count as _just like that_. I think we're probably the opposite of just like that."

"Perhaps," Draco said. 

"Stay," Harry said. "Just stay. We'll sort it all out later."

"That's worked so well for us so far."

Harry let himself smile. "Got us here, didn't it? It got us him."

This time, Draco smiled back, and Harry couldn't look away. 

~*~

Draco slept in the spare room the other side of the nursery, and they met in the middle of the night over Jonny's cot, both of them woken by his fierce little cries. 

"Is he all right?" Draco looked worried. 

"Yeah," Harry said. "He's good. Pick him up. Then we cycle through the things that could be wrong."

Draco glanced at him, and then down at their little boy. 

"He won't bite," Harry said. "No teeth."

"Is this something else you've learnt? They don't have teeth?"

"I learnt when they get them, which is something I didn't know before." Harry helped Draco cradle Jonny's head. "There we go, Daddy's got you. That's right."

Draco's eyes widened. 

"Going to have to get used to that pretty quickly," Harry said. "Daddy. Or something similar."

"My father was always just _Father_."

"Well," Harry said, as lightly as he could manage. "You can be whatever you want to be."

Draco pressed a kiss to Jonny's head. "Yeah," he said, and cradled their son close. 

~*~

"Hermione came to see me," Draco said, when he was feeding Jonny his bottle and Harry was making them both cups of tea. 

"Did she?"

"More than once, actually. She doorstepped me three days in a row."

"She's determined," Harry said, spooning out their teabags with the end of a butter knife and deliberately not meeting Draco's gaze, which he was mostly certain would be entirely horrified. It was entirely possible he was rethinking his entire moving in strategy because of Harry's lazy tea-making approach, but in Harry's defence, it tasted fine and Harry had had his fill of stupid tea-related rules back when he was charged with making it for Aunt Petunia all those years. He splashed in some milk and gave it a stir with the end of the knife before putting it down on the table next to Draco. 

"You're a monster," Draco said, but he sounded almost fond about it, which had the added benefit of making Harry's heart want to expand to let more of Draco inside. That surely should have been impossible given that it had already tripled in size since Jonny was born, but maybe that was part of the magic of their moonlight baby. Extra chest capacity. "So, yes. Hermione. Doorstepped me three days in a row. Wanted to make sure that I was all right, apparently, and that I had someone to talk to."

"That was good of her," Harry said neutrally, resolving to rugby tackle Hermione to the ground next time he saw her, just so that she knew the extent of his gratitude. 

"I wasn't very nice to her. At least I wasn't the first two times. The third time she brought me breakfast and practically bustled her way inside."

"She's forceful, but in a good way."

"Maybe," Draco said. "I cried all over her for about two hours and then locked myself in the bathroom, so she might have regretted her decision in the end."

Harry gave in to temptation and leaned in to kiss Draco's forehead. It wasn't something they'd done when one of them wasn't overflowing with emotions that they didn't seem to have the capacity to deal with, so they stared at each other for a moment, before Draco blushed and turned his attention back to their baby. 

"Anyway, she didn't go," Draco went on, as if Harry hadn't kissed him. "She just made me an awful cup of coffee and asked me what I wanted more than anything else."

"What did you pick?"

Draco glanced at him, then away. "This," he said. "My baby. You."

"Well," Harry said, turning away. "That's exactly what you've got. For as long as you want us."

Behind him, Draco's breath caught, but Harry busied himself spooning sugar into his tea, and didn't look back. 

~*~

"You are both completely incapable of dealing with normal human emotion," Hermione told him fiercely, pacing up and down the garden with Jonny in her arms. He was all wrapped up in a little coat and a little hat and little mittens and a blanket. "You are a shipwreck of a human. The two of you are completely emotionally illiterate."

"Bit harsh," Harry said, eating a cheese and onion pasty. He'd started eating it whilst holding Jonny, but then he'd dropped crumbs on his head and Hermione had rolled her eyes and taken him for a fierce garden pace. "We're all right."

"Not harsh enough," Hermione said. "You're in love with him! He's in love with you! Neither of you have even attempted to articulate this, instead you have a baby you talk around, Draco's stuff is still stuck in a flat he hates, and neither of you have any idea how to progress this relationship in any meaningful way forward. And I still can't actually believe you had no flipping idea you could get someone pregnant by the light of the full moon."

"Well, that one's just going to go on and on, isn't it?" Harry said, taking another bite of his pasty. "Surely at some point it'll grow old."

"No," Hermione said. "Because you are an idiot, and you still won't flipping admit you're in love with him."

"I will," Harry said, a little bit stung. "Course I will. I'm saying it now, aren't I?"

"Not to actual Draco, though," Hermione said. "I don't care who you're in love with, but he actually might."

"It hasn't come up," Harry said. 

"Oh my god," Hermione said. "I'm going to set fire to you."

"You wouldn't," Harry said, licking the remains of his cheese and onion pasty off his fingers. "Give me my baby."

"No," Hermione said. "I'm keeping him hostage until you go inside and actually talk to Draco about how you both feel. No, go away. Don't make that face at me. I'm immune. So's Jonny. Inside. Now."

"Ugh," Harry said, and he shoved his hands in his pockets. "I'm really not happy about this."

"Articulate a feeling," Hermione said. "And do it quickly, I need the loo."

Harry stomped his way inside. He hadn't had much sleep. He had no idea what to say. Feelings were rubbish. "Draco!"

"In here," Draco called back. He was in the living room with Ron, where they were talking in general terms about the possibility of maybe at some point in the future possibly playing a game of chess together. Luckily it wasn't just Harry who was shit at relationship building. 

"Hermione's holding our baby hostage until we articulate our feelings," Harry said, not meeting Draco's eyes. 

"I'll just, uh—" Ron said, scarpering. 

"He's got the right idea," Harry said as the back door slammed behind him. 

"Where's Jonny?"

"Told you, Hermione's got him. She said could we hurry up because she needs the loo."

"She could just give us our baby back," Draco said, eyeing the door. "Then everyone's happy."

"I wouldn't be," Harry said finally, rubbing the toe of his trainer against the floor. "Love you, don't I? It's not like you don't know that, I don't know what she's on about. Told you I wanted you to stay, didn't I?"

There was a strangled sort of a noise from where Draco was sitting. "And I told you I wanted Jonny and you, that was the same thing. You know I love you."

"We just haven't done anything about it because, like, we're tired and we have to look after Jonny."

"Yes," Draco said. There was a pause. "And because I'm scared shitless. Also because of that."

"Yeah," Harry said. "Maybe because I'm more scared than I've ever been in my whole entire life that you'll walk away and I'll fuck this up. I always fuck it up. I don't know anything about people. Turns out I don't fucking know anything about anything, do I? Got you pregnant cos I didn't know shit."

"I can't believe you didn't know."

"I didn't," Harry said. "Don't know where I was supposed to find out, but anyway."

Draco looked down at the carpet. "You said I was beautiful. In your letter."

"You were," Harry said. "Still are, really. When you're not being an arse."

"Same."

Harry came over and sat on the arm of the sofa, ignoring Draco's pained look. "You're not going anywhere, are you? You'll stay here, with us?"

"If you want me to." Draco reached out and touched his fingers to Harry's hand. "If you're asking me to stay properly."

"Might be," Harry said.

Draco laced his fingers with Harry's. "Do you think we should try and talk more?"

Harry made a face. "That sounds terrible. It's much easier when we don't."

"Is it?"

"Well, maybe not." Harry slid off the sofa arm and down onto the cushion next to Draco. "It has been pretty shit, hasn't it?"

"Yeah," Draco said. They were still holding hands. "Apart from Jonny."

"He's a bit of all right," Harry said. There was a pause. "I really do love you, you know. Like, a lot. A lot, a lot."

"I like a scale you can measure against. And I don't want to go anywhere. I want to stay here, with you. I don't want to stay in your spare room anymore. I want to stay with you. I want to learn how we can be a family so we don't fuck him up like we're fucked up."

"Me too," Harry said. "I want that too."

"Don't know what Hermione's talking about, we're not emotionally illiterate," Draco said. "We've just made a life plan."

"We absolutely did," Harry agreed, and then, very slowly, quite awkwardly, he leaned in, and pressed his mouth to Draco's. 

And Draco, trembling, cupped Harry's face in his hands and kissed him back. 

~*~

"This is a terrible idea," Draco said, pacing the entrance hall. 

"Probably," Harry agreed. He had Jonny perched on his lap, the two of them sitting on the stairs, waiting for the doorbell to ring. 

"She hasn't wanted to be friends with me for ages, why is that going to change just because we've suddenly got a baby," Draco said, for about the fiftieth time. "I don't know why I invited her."

"Who knows," Harry said, which probably wasn't very helpful, but then he was sitting back and letting Pansy Parkinson, Estate Agent, into his home when practically the last time they'd seen each other she'd been all for shopping him to Voldemort. That said, he was riding the crest of a wave of newly co-habiting, new parent bliss and couldn't really be bothered to argue with anything that might make Draco happier. And Draco deserved friends, even ones who landed him with a black and chrome flat for a year and never came around for tea or to notice that he'd gone and got himself knocked up. 

Draco came over and tilted Harry's chin up so he could kiss him. "If she's terrible, let's make her change Jonny's nappy."

"Excellent idea," Harry said. "Or work it so she gets baby sick down her neck."

"I like how our revenge plans have got somewhat… smaller as the years have passed."

"Emotional growth, isn't it?"

"Perhaps," Draco said, stroking Jonny's face with his finger. 

"Hermione will be pleased."

"Let's send her a card to say thanks."

"It'll make her day," Harry said, tugging him in for another kiss. "Thanks for making our revenge plans smaller and making us articulate a feeling."

Draco grinned at him. "We'd have got there in the end."

"Don't think I could have lasted much longer. All that hand holding and looking in different directions. We would still have been doing it when Jonny was at school."

"His first day of Hogwarts, there's just me and you looking in different directions, sure in the knowledge that we love each other and at some point it'll just happen by itself."

"That's what happened the first time, isn't it? Happened by itself. By the light of the moon and all that."

"Think it might have been the bottle of firewhisky," Draco said, as the doorbell rang. He kissed Harry again, then straightened up and went over to answer the door. 

Pansy, when she came in, was dressed in very spiky high heeled shoes, and the kind of tight business dress that could quite clearly market a lot of dwellings in Basingstoke. 

"Hello, Pansy," Harry said. "Long time, no see."

"Magical fucking shitballs," Pansy said. "You've got a baby."

Harry, amused, grinned at Draco, who came over and kissed the top of his head. 

"Yes," Draco said, smiling, taking Harry's hand. "We really rather do."

[end]

**Author's Note:**

> [Rebloggable Tumblr post](https://magicalrocketships.tumblr.com/post/610968893456023552/cant-fight-the-moonlight-by-sunsetmog-harry).


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